I see the logic behind dumping the connector, and the EU's logic behind the USB charging standard, however...

I don't see apple dumping the connector yet. So many devices use it, that it would probably cause a riot from those who have it in their expensive cars.

IMO, the most likely thing that will happen is that Apple will release a new iPhone/iPad/iPod that uses a new connector (see the magsafe patent) in addition to the old connector, and then drop the old connector after three years when the warranty is up for everything that has just the old connector. Or the new device will start with just the new connector and have a cradle to connect to the old one that can just be left permanently attached to the interface it was being used with.

If they're going to do it they'll just pull of the band aid. Will be sore at first but you'll get over it. As for customers with third party speakers etc. Someone will produce a new to old connector, and so people will use this as an excuse to upgrade to an AirPlay speaker. It's just a damn shame they are so expensive currently.

I really hope they go with a magsafe connection. I find the micro / macro usb plugs too small, it's so much harder to fit in, it's hard to tell which side is which on the little port. For something you have to charge every day, it's not great. Would be really cool if they made a mini magsafe though, as small as micro usb, but snaps right in.

That's the dream. Should have happened 3 years ago. Besides, if it's MagSafe it doesn't even need to be that small.

I don't care if it's smaller or not, just please add Thunderbolt to it.

You might get your wish. Thunderbolt is a strategic technology for Apple. If Apple switch from USB to Thunderbolt for wired syncing, it will provide further motivation for iOS device owners to replace their PeeCees with Macs. Those without Thunderbolt-equipped computers would still be able to use slow wireless syncing.

The writing on AI has been getting really bad. I read the second paragraph a few times to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Quote:

"Apple blog iMore has "heard" from unnamed sources that the iPhone maker is in 2010, and the technology found its way to the iPhone 4 to make space for a larger battery. The frugality went further as the internal antenna was displaced to the handset's edge, a design that caused the so-called "antenna-gate" fiasco. "

If you don't think this is news, your crazy. Apparently, Apple has temporally moved its production facilities back two years. This has tremendous advantages, like knowing exactly when supplies will be short or what team will win the Super Bowl. I do wonder why they don't start producing from an earlier date, and avoid "the fiasco" completely.

The USB 2 micro USB connector is limited compared to the 30 pin connector, but what about USB 3? I think there was also a rumor of magsafe-like connectors a while back, these two go hand in hand. But I'd still prefer something I don't need to keep unique cables and accessories for.

re:thunderbolt, meh, none of these devices has fast enough NAND to saturate USB 2 and won't for a while, let alone USB 3 if they finally switch to that after Ivy Bridge macs are out. I guess it could charge them as fast as a 10W power plug, but you would not see crazy transfer speeds just by changing the connection.

People are going to through a fit about how Apple changed it to get us to upgrade all our stuff but the truth is they've used the same connector since April 2003 with the 3rd iPod release. That's 9 years for the same 30-pin Dock Connector. If a new, smaller connector will usher in another decade of portable devices then I'm all for it.

They may have used the same physical connector, but they've added and deprecated features over the years as they see fit. For example, anyone that had an adapter or accessory that charged through the Firewire pin, and of course, dropped the FW data connection too. It seems like they've done that for other things too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX

Unless Apple moves to optical (which I think is not highly unlikely) or moves away from USB (equally unlikely) the most you'd have to do with an older car with an iPod Dock Connector is get the adapter.

Just to be clear, the EU isn't requiring Apple to remove the iPod Dock Connector or add a micro-USB connector directly to the device.

Yeah, I don't know where people keep getting this idea that faster connection = faster transfer, the NAND in these devices only reads and writes at 15MB/s as an upper limit, its not the same high performance stuff in SSDs. That doesn't even saturate USB 2.0, which limits external hard drives to 40MB/s.

In what way is USB limited compared to a 30-pin connector? Judging by the fact that Apple sells a 30-pin to microUSB adpater, USB isn't limited in any meaningful way.

The 30-pin to microUSB DOES limit the connector. Just because it is an 'adapter' does not mean it provides the same functionality- it does not. Apple sells that adapter to appease the EU who mandates that all cell phones be able to charge over microUSB- CHARGE is the key word there.

The EU is requiring micro USB as a standard, yeah. There's been talk of Apple just supplying an adapter to go between that and the 30-pin connector. But honestly, micro USB is smaller than 30-pin, and not just by a little bit - by a lot. It would be really nice to be able to carry just one cable and use it interchangeably between my phone, my external hard drive, and my DSLR.

what about in the car?

when i had android for 6 months last year i couldn't play it via my car's USB port. iphone works via USB and no need to buy the bluetooth option for the car

I think 802.11n is fine for wireless transfers. It's mainly just syncing so the transfers are small. I like the idea of having magsafe but it will still be connected to USB for Windows compatibility.

USB 3 will help out - 4.8Gbps or 600MB/s maximum but the sync will only ever reach the maximum rates of your drives so the write speed of the NAND inside the iOS device and the read speed of the drive inside the Mac. I expect the NAND write will be the slowest but if they double the NAND and use RAID 0 in future iOS devices, it can go up a lot. There is a test here of the storage speed:

It doesn't look like a very sustained test but 50MB/s seems reasonable. In RAID 0, they could hit 100MB/s and max it with USB 3.

That could use a micro-USB connector or it could use magsafe. The 30-pin connector was quite good in that it could support a phone device's weight but it is bulky and it needs to go. I would like to see microUSB with USB host support so that you can buy an inexpensive adaptor for plugging in a camera or USB pen:

Imagine two people with iPads exchanging files, just take the pen, plug it in, copy and you're done. They don't need to show the filesystem directly, it can just load up discovered files inside the individual app view.

An unsubstantiated rumor claims that Apple is looking to replace the venerable 30-pin iPhone, iPad and iPod dock connector with a smaller, space-saving successor that will possibly make a debut in the company's next generation iPhone.

In related news, Apple sends out armies of salesmen signing up new lucrative licenses for use of the new dock connector.

An unsubstantiated rumor claims that Apple is looking to replace the venerable 30-pin iPhone, iPad and iPod dock connector with a smaller, space-saving successor that will possibly make a debut in the company's next generation iPhone.

Apple blog iMore has "heard" from unnamed sources that the iPhone maker is in 2010, and the technology found its way to the iPhone 4 to make space for a larger battery. The frugality went further as the internal antenna was displaced to the handset's edge, a design that caused the so-called "antenna-gate" fiasco.

Another factor is the connector's role in data transfer. With the advent of iCloud, AirPlay and the energy-sipping Bluetooth 4.0, a future iPhone may only need a cable for charging purposes.

It is unclear what would become of the huge ecosystem of existing "Made for iDevice" products, which is a lucrative business for both Apple and third-party companies, as it would be made obsolete by a redesigned connector.

Illustration of space taken by current dock connector in an iPhone. | Source: iMore

No further information was given, and it is important to reiterate that the aforementioned specifics were based on guesswork.

Maybe you should actually check to see what comes out of the 30 pin dock connector, like:

Video - VGA/component/HDMI
Audio - Line in/out

Did you really thing it was just for power and data?

Sorry to break it to you, but digital video signal and audio signal are nothing but specialized data. As long as the interface's speed can support the amount of data to be passed through, a USB cable will transport the video and audio signals you mentioned just fine.

If USB can't transport audio signal, then my USB audio card won't be working at all. And there are monitors with only USB connectors on the market. So it's not a theoretical statement to say, USB can indeed support video and audio connections.

Sorry to break it to you, but digital video signal and audio signal are nothing but specialized data. As long as the interface's speed can support the amount of data to be passed through, a USB cable will transport the video and audio signals you mentioned just fine.

If USB can't transport audio signal, then my USB audio card won't be working at all. And there are monitors with only USB connectors on the market. So it's not a theoretical statement to say, USB can indeed support video and audio connections.

That is true, but that changes it from being a direct wiring to your amp to needing an intermediate chip and power supply to convert the data to a signal if your amp doesn't have USB audio built in.

Video out, I don't know much about that setup, but still would generally require a chip in between your iOS device and your display.

I think they're both unnecessary complications vs. the existing system. If sending out a raw stream goes away, I would expect that Apple would just standardize on the wireless AirPlay system, that does away with intermediate cables, signal converters, etc., and it seems a lot of devices are starting to include that capability now.

There are issues with wireless charging. Most notably it's slow. I'd love to option to buy a 30-pin connector cable for iDevices that would terminate at Thunderbolt to get the 10W charging from my Mac. The iPad takes too long over USB as it is.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

The EU is requiring micro USB as a standard, yeah. There's been talk of Apple just supplying an adapter to go between that and the 30-pin connector. But honestly, micro USB is smaller than 30-pin, and not just by a little bit - by a lot. It would be really nice to be able to carry just one cable and use it interchangeably between my phone, my external hard drive, and my DSLR.
Micro USB doesn't carry the signal pins that Apple uses. It's just USB. Apple's dock connector carries audio, video, control information, etc.

@ chabig - Exacty. The way things are now you can connect the iPhone, iPad, or iPod to at projector and show video, presentations, or more (the pico projectors are really handy!), but if Apple replaced the dock connector with USB that would no longer be possible. Fine for danbirchall who never considers such a use, but bad for all of the other users who depend on such possibilities. However, if Apple figured out a way to stream the video wirelessly that could be easily taken up by the market, then I wouldn't have too many objections to removing the dock connector. Although it will be hard to replace the physical strength of the dock connector. Many dock accessories would be impossible if the connector wasn't so strong.

Imagine two people with iPads exchanging files, just take the pen, plug it in, copy and you're done. They don't need to show the filesystem directly, it can just load up discovered files inside the individual app view.

Bleck the ipad's speeds would be limited regardless of connection type. The memory used there has a relatively low maximum write speed compared to the non idevices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Oh, so Thunderbolt, then.

Somehow I figured you'd say that. It looks cost prohibitive at this time. While mass adoption would bring the cost down, I'm not sure it will be in line with usb at any foreseeable point.

There are issues with wireless charging. Most notably it's slow. I'd love to option to buy a 30-pin connector cable for iDevices that would terminate at Thunderbolt to get the 10W charging from my Mac. The iPad takes too long over USB as it is.

Can't charge without a cable to power somehow, unless you create energy (literally) out of thin air. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. You could always slap solar panel the size of a city block to back to your iPhone.

And people can be accidentally right about an outcome but be completely crazy as to why they expect something to change. So why do you think that no physical connector will occur on upcoming iDevices.

I never said get rid of all connectors, I said they should get rid of the big ugly 30 pin connector they're using now. They could have a proprietary connector for power charging alone, everything else can be handled through AirPlay and wireless syncing - yes, even audio in could work. They have been driving towards this for awhile. And who cares if wireless syncing is slow? What else do you have really have to do when you're syncing anyway?

You realize that inductive charging exists, right? You don't HAVE to have a cable, but there's no tech that exists yet that allows Apple to do what they want with it.

Yep, but your device must still be attached to a base unit, even if it's through the air, it's not across the room as most people are assuming. We're talking a quarter of an inch at best for a distance. People wanting this technology don't understand extremely basic physics (or it would have been done already.) If it would have been possible, don't you think the power companies would done this along time ago and do away with power lines? Of course they would have, but since it's not possible to transmit energy, we're stuck with a cabled approach for power delivery. The best approach they have come up with is burying the cable, but that's just out of site out of mind. Yes, I'm an engineer and I know more than two cents about this topic.

Thanks dude, although simpleton? Hehe, ok. I have been on this site for a long time but I usually don't comment too much. I'm constantly amazed how people screw topics into the ground and have no idea what they're actually talking about. Still, it's entertaining.